Criminal Minds (Fox Meridian Book 4)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Someone get Sister Anne!’

  ‘Get pressure on that wound!’

  Other hands were on her, soft hands. She was going to be okay.

  ‘There’s so much…’ And the voice faded out as Gilly’s consciousness faded away.

  ~~~

  ‘Did you watch it? How did I do?’ Marie was looking somewhere between excited and nervous. Fox was not sure whether the bouncing, which Marie’s dress was really not designed for, was from one emotion or the other.

  ‘We saw,’ Sam said. ‘I thought you did very well.’

  ‘You even had Iberson on your side by the end of it,’ Fox said, ‘which is an achievement in itself. Though I think she just wanted you in bed…’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t,’ Marie said, grinning. The grin faded a bit. ‘You think?’

  ‘You’re talking to two people who are ill-equipped to deny your attractiveness,’ Sam said. ‘However, I believe she was also swayed by your passion for the role and the profession. I was rather proud of your defence of a job you don’t believe you could do. Now, sit down before you pop out of that dress.’

  ‘It’s taped. I can’t pop out. Fox? What’s wrong?’

  The expression on Fox’s face had wiped all the enthusiasm from Marie’s mind in an instant. Her words did worse. ‘Someone got into the chapter house. Three of the Sisters are dead.’ Fox was on her feet and moving before either of them could react. ‘I have to get over there. There are RRUs on the way now.’

  Sam and Marie looked at each other. ‘We’re coming with you,’ Sam said.

  ‘Well, I don’t have time to argue or wait. If you’re coming, get a move on.’

  Part Three: Criminal Minds

  New York Metro, 9th October 2060.

  Fox was climbing out of the autocab almost before it had stopped, Sam and then Marie hot on her heels. They headed straight for the main entrance of the chapter house where an RRU was standing guard, standing on its six solid legs and somehow managing to look alert despite having no face to speak of. The air was filled with the howl of vertol engines as Pythia’s transport came to a landing in the empty lot opposite. Fox waited for the engines to start to shut down before speaking.

  ‘George, report.’

  ‘I arrived on scene four minutes and sixteen seconds after the alert was raised,’ the RRU responded immediately. ‘Long-range viewing showed an adult male exiting the building in haste and I diverted to pursue. However, the suspected target eluded me. I was unable to track him after he entered a container storage facility near the river. Determining that client safety was paramount, I came here to ascertain the current situation inside. Another two RRUs arrived some nine minutes three seconds later and are deployed in a search of the container yard.’

  ‘Okay. And what is the situation inside?’

  ‘Three clients have been confirmed as deceased, one is injured. A medevac unit has been dispatched and will arrive in one hundred and thirty-two seconds.’

  ‘Did you get names?’ Marie asked urgently.

  ‘I am sorry, Miss Shaftsbury, I did not.’

  ‘Okay, George. Thanks for getting here so quickly.’

  ‘That is my job, Miss Shaftsbury. Miss Meridian, Sister Naomi Lind informed me that she would be in the clinic when you arrived.’

  ‘Thanks, George.’ Fox started up the steps to the main entrance as Dillan ran across from the vertol. ‘You made good time.’

  ‘I was awake,’ Dillan replied, ‘and they keep Pythia fuelled and ready.’

  ‘Yeah. Start deploying the forensic gear; we’re going to need it.’ Dillan did an abrupt about-face while Fox, Sam, and Marie continued into the building to find Naomi.

  They found her, as George had indicated, in the clinic, standing near the door and watching Anne and another Sister working on a girl lying on one of the beds. There was a lot of blood on all three, and on the over-sized T-shirt which was what Naomi had yanked on when the alarms had sounded.

  ‘Oh God, it’s Gilly!’ Marie’s exclamation made Naomi turn.

  ‘She’s stable,’ Naomi said. ‘Anne stabilised her, closed the wound, but she’s lost a lot of blood. We need to get her to a hospital.’

  Fox checked the data feeds she was getting from Palladium. ‘We have a medevac unit landing outside now. Get her out front and she’ll be in the new tower in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘We didn’t contract for medical–’ Naomi stopped as she noticed the stare Fox was giving her. ‘You don’t care what the contract says.’

  ‘The contract says that we provide security for this building and, until I determine that this guy got in in some way we couldn’t stop, we have failed. So we’re going to take care of Gilly there and no one is going to bitch about it. But you’re right, I don’t care about the contract. She’s Marie’s friend and I’d pay for the care out of my own pocket if I had to. MarTech tower three has the best medical facility in the metro, maybe the country, and we’re wasting time.’

  Naomi turned again. ‘Anne, get her ready to move. There’s a medical transport outside to take her for treatment.’

  ‘I’m going with her,’ Anne said as she shifted into preparation rather than treatment mode.

  ‘I’d like to go too,’ Marie added.

  ‘Evac unit only takes the patient,’ Fox said, frowning. ‘Those things are good, she’ll be under the care of the AI in flight, and they have a full medical trauma kit aboard. Hold on… Okay, we have five security people coming in to help me and post guard. I’ll send you back on their transport and make sure you’re cleared through to the medical section. Naomi, I need clearance from you to get my forensic kit to work on the victims and begin a search.’

  Naomi frowned. ‘All business today, aren’t we?’

  ‘Naomi–’ Sam began, but Fox cut him off.

  ‘I need to be. So do you. Let me get on with finding out how this happened and catching the bastard, and let Sam help you with the others. They’re going to be shocked. Their home has been invaded. They need you to take control and get everyone settled.’

  The Sister Superior nodded, her brow still furrowed. ‘Do what you have to do.’

  Fox turned away and walked out into the corridor, connecting to Dillan as she went. ‘Helen, get Pythia moving. I want the forensics units on the crime scene ten minutes ago.’

  ‘We’ve got a couple of Ryan’s troops here with those crime assist vests,’ Dillan responded. ‘Three more for security and crowd control.’

  ‘Right. I’ll come down and brief them; you get Pythia going. It’s going to be a long night.’

  ~~~

  Fox stood in the doorway of a dorm room, her eyes on one of the three bodies sprawled on bunks inside, but her vision filled with data from the forensic units which were working the scene. Three victims, each killed with quick, efficient strikes which had opened their throats in a neat line, bisecting arteries and veins. Death had come quickly and, from the way they were lying, in their sleep. They had felt nothing, known nothing. They had certainly been dead before he had opened them up like he was filleting fish and begun emptying their abdomens of organs. The swarms were still working, but they would do the accounting and determine what he had taken.

  ‘Anne called,’ Naomi said from behind her. ‘Gilly’s prognosis is good.’

  ‘I know. I’ve got a direct feed from the doctors working on her. Severe blood loss, but they’ve repaired the blood vessels and closed the wound, and they’re replacing the plasma. Could have been a lot worse. Anne saved her life.’

  ‘I… should apologise for earlier.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Fox turned around. Naomi had changed into her uniform: authority in skimpy dress form to help the Sister Superior get through the last hour. Sam was standing behind her, a little way back to give them room. ‘I’m not going to either, because it was what was needed then. How are the Sisters?’

  ‘We’ve moved everyone off this floor for now. Put some of them in larger rooms for now. It’s a good thing we aren�
�t full. They… probably aren’t sleeping.’

  ‘Understandable. I’ve got the forensic units going over this room. I did a quick scan of the corridor, but I don’t think it’s worth doing in detail. We’ll have a clean-up team come in and fix it up. I’d like to seal this room for now. Move the bodies out, but hold the scene.’

  Naomi gave a nod. ‘You’ll want to do autopsies.’

  ‘If you have no objections. Though I doubt we’ll get more than the swarms can find since they have more access than usual.’ The emotional responses Fox had spent the last hour suppressing made it known that they were not going to stay under forever and she scowled back into the room. ‘You remember that conversation about doing the right thing?’

  ‘Yes. God is testing my faith in a particularly cruel fashion tonight. She might just have gone too far this time.’

  ‘Not that I believe in God, but this happening in a building we secure means I got to run forensics, and I get the crime scene for a couple of days before we have to hand this over to NAPA. I’ll say I got a break I wasn’t expecting in the investigation, and you can say God helped in one of her inscrutable ways, if it helps.’

  Naomi’s lips curled a little at the corners. ‘Thank you, it does. I don’t understand how this happened. How did he get in?’

  ‘Good question. We got images of him leaving, so he’s not using camouflage. No good images. He was keeping his head down so Gilly is our best bet for a full facial. I’ve got one of Pythia’s drones, two security people, and Helen Dillan searching for the answer to that now. We’ll– Hold on.’ Fox switched to internal communications. ‘Helen?’

  ‘Can you come down to the cold storage room? We’ve got something, but neither Nebbs nor I can figure out what.’

  ‘On my way.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘Cold storage. Helen thinks they’ve found something.’

  ‘In the fridge?!’ Naomi asked.

  Fox shrugged. ‘Considering this guy shouldn’t have been able to get in without being seen, we’re looking for something well out of the ordinary. The fridge is almost too ordinary. I was starting to worry someone had invented a teleporter.’

  ~~~

  ‘Okay,’ Fox said, ‘it’s a box.’ The lights in the storage room were up to full now, but it was still cold. The only person who looked comfortable was Nebbs in her Palladium uniform. And they were all looking at a box about a metre on each side with its top ripped open.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dillan said. ‘It’s an empty box. The code on the side says it should contain beef packets, various cuts.’

  ‘So it got emptied.’

  ‘Delivery date was yesterday.’

  ‘We would not go through an entire crate of beef in a day,’ Naomi put in.

  ‘No,’ Dillan said, ‘didn’t think so, but it’s not just that. Nebbs, tell them what your fashion statement says.’

  Nebbs was not what one might think of as a security officer at first glance. She was not tall, and the uniform masked her build, but Fox knew how those outfits hung and Nebbs could probably flatten a strong man without breaking a sweat. Her black hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and her brown eyes looked a little nervous. ‘The carton is designed to be sealed against contaminants. The joints are all welded except for the lid, which has molecular bonding tape closing all the seams. The tape has been cut with a very sharp blade. I detected a couple of small fragments of metal stuck in the adhesive, but I can’t analyse it with this kit.’

  ‘We’ll get a forensics swarm in here,’ Fox said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am, but I can look at the cut, magnified, and it seems to have been done from inside the box. The tear patterns on the lid also appear to indicate that pressure was applied from below. There are knuckle marks in one of the panels, again from below.’

  There was silence for a second and then Sam said, ‘Just so we’re clear, the suggestion here is that someone had himself sealed into a box, with no air holes. He made sure that the box would be delivered to the cold storage room here, where he waited a day before breaking out. Then he walked upstairs and killed three women. That’s what we’re proposing.’

  ‘It’s just about possible,’ Fox said. ‘The right equipment and you could do it. Lying in that box for a couple of days, barely moving… It would be tough, very tough, and you’d probably go nuts, but then this guy was nuts when he went in.’

  ‘So he delivers himself to us,’ Naomi said, ‘and ends up in a section with no camera coverage because you can’t get past the cameras to get here.’

  ‘Yeah. Ryan Jarvis, head of Palladium security, is going to be here in about an hour to suggest that you kick him from here to the spaceport. I suggest you politely decline. On the other hand, don’t let him tell you he told you so because his people should have pushed harder for more coverage. Hell, I should have when I came around with Marie.’

  ‘We got what we asked for.’

  ‘And if you start blaming yourself for this, I’ll be the one doing the kicking. Yes, it could have been avoided, or the damage reduced, but this is something so far outside the box, no pun intended, that you cannot be blamed for not seeing it coming.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to remember that at the funerals.’

  ~~~

  ‘How is she?’ Fox asked.

  ‘The same,’ Marie replied, her eyes not moving from the girl in the bed. ‘I’ll defer to the medic present for the details.’

  Sister Anne gave Fox a bleak smile. ‘She’s stable and she’ll recover. They closed the vessels and reinforced them, closed up the wound, and pumped her full of artificial plasma. She probably won’t even have a scar, but they’ll need to wait for her to wake up to be sure the blood loss didn’t result in any brain damage.’

  ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed,’ Fox said. ‘Sister Naomi will be over to see her in an hour or so. She’s currently discussing extra camera coverage with Ryan.’

  ‘I don’t think there’ll be any objections. Not after this. Did you get anything from the forensics?’

  ‘More mystery. Even with all our equipment, the guy leaves nothing behind. He had to be wearing a suit, but there’s nothing visible in the video from the security system. We’ve got flakes of surgical-grade steel from the blades he uses, and when we catch him, we can tie those to his knives metallurgically. But… No skin cells, no hairs. We got a few fibres from what looks like a black, waterproof coat. Those were in a box in the cold storage room, which appears to be how he got in, but that’s just more weirdness.’

  ‘A box in cold storage?’ Marie asked, puzzled.

  ‘Yeah. He has to have got into the packing plant, labelled a box, got into it as it was going into the sealing machine, and then waited for at least two days while it’s delivered right past the security cameras. Two days, sealed up in a box. I’m starting to think he’s not human.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘No… I’m going to grab a couple of hours’ sleep. You two should do the same.’ Fox turned from the room and started out. ‘Kit,’ she said, silently, ‘check on Terri’s availability tomorrow. I want to talk to her about homicidal AIs.’

  10th October.

  ‘Well, of course it’s not impossible,’ Terri said, ‘but it can’t just happen. Someone would have to deliberately program an AI to be a killer.’

  Despite it being a Sunday, Terri was working in one of the AI labs, and that was where Fox had found her, along with a rat which was running around the floor between and under the desks. It was a little distracting, but Terri seemed oblivious. ‘So we’d be talking a military programme, or NIX,’ Fox said, her eyes on the rat, which was currently washing its whiskers. It did look like a lab rat, white-furred and plump, and clearly not caring about the humans.

  ‘Probably. You see, there are protocols. Every AI we design, including Kit, has to have behavioural control protocols. They obey laws and they won’t develop mental kinks that might result in harm. It’s coded into their minds at a pretty basic level. It’s not impossible for
them to break the rules, but it’s pretty hard, and they’d probably turn themselves in if they did.’

  ‘But someone could leave those protocols out?’

  ‘Illegally, yes. Every AI put into production has to be run through a series of psychological tests before release. No pass, no sales, and you’re required to scrap the software and start from scratch. It’s assumed that the flaw is fundamental.’

  ‘What about experimental models? I mean, you said they had to be tested to go out for sale. If that wasn’t intended…’

  ‘Prior to testing, you have to keep the code on secured servers. No access outside the local network.’

  Fox grunted. ‘Even NIX aren’t useless enough to lose two projects like this. And the thing that infected Doran and Deedle seemed to have purpose: it just got outside its normal operating parameters. I guess we’re probably dealing with a human. A really dedicated, insane human.’

  ‘Probably,’ Terri agreed.

  Fox watched as the rat finished with its whiskers and darted under a desk. ‘Terri… AI labs aren’t noted for pets. What’s with the rat?’

  ‘Agnus? She’s not a rat. Or, she is a rat, but not a real one. She’s our only success from the Akh project. So far.’

  ‘Don’t recall that one.’

  ‘Immortality in digital form. We use nanomachines to take a brain apart and analyse the structure. The results are converted to a program which emulates the original brain.’ She paused. ‘It’s obviously a lot more complicated than that.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d kind of figured it would be.’

  ‘Yeah. So it works on rats. And if they stick to a viron we created for them, they do okay. They don’t even know they’re software. When we try to take them out… What you see there is a cyberframe with a v-tag overlaying the image. Agnus is the only one we managed to get to function in the frame. Took to it like…’

  ‘A rat to cheese?’

  ‘Ha ha, but pretty much. All the others go totally bug-o. One was irretrievable. Totally lost it even when we put him back in the viron. Just sat in a corner and shivered. We had to turn the poor little guy off. We’re a fair way off human testing, but if we ever even want to think about it, we’re going to have to understand what the problem is.’